Study Visit Croatia

Zagreb

Nikola Tesla Elementary

-Zagreb is the capital and in many ways the cultural, technological and scientific center of Croatia. The city’s special geographical location places it at the intersection of Mediterranean, South-Eastern and Central Europe. As such, despite diversity has in recent years mainly focused on immigrants from nearby former-Yugoslavian countries, this location implies Zagreb will be in the epicenter of the current refugee crisis, with many people passing by the city on their way to Central Europe or their desire to stay here, as one of the most developed cities in the Balkans.

–Lithuania, Portugal and the Netherlands comprised the NAOS visiting countries, with school- community relationships as the overarching NAOS theme throughout the study visit. On our first day we got to visit Ivan Supek secondary, a school which is host to over 1000 students. The school has yet to acquire a significant diverse population, however, its involvement in numerous educational partnerships and cooperation with institutions and NGOs seem to be fostering continuous conflict-resolution initiatives which will likely be very valuable in the difficult years to come for potential refugee students. The primary school we visited the next day, Nikola Tesla Elementary, was a similarly well-networked school, highly prominent in the entire city. It offers special programs for Macedonian students around Zagreb, and unique programs tailored to special need students. The school also cooperates with numerous kindergartens, libraries and even city gardens. Teaching tolerance and educating students and communities about other languages have lately been placed on the top of the priority list. Overall, we were lucky to see two schools that are not turning their back to an issue that is soon to be faced by many European countries to a large scale, but are sufficiently preparing themselves to serve the needs of unprivileged children.